


Winner

by undyingUmbrage



Category: Battle Royale - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 01:58:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10934613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undyingUmbrage/pseuds/undyingUmbrage
Summary: All Mayumi wants is to win at something.





	Winner

**Author's Note:**

> This is (hopefully) part of a series where I write a short story from the perspective of each Battle Royale student, centred around a randomly chosen word. Some will be canon-compliant, while others (like this one) will be AUs. I doubt the others will be as long as this one, but I hope you enjoy it!

Mayumi doesn’t think of herself as a winner. No matter what she does in life, it seems to fall just short of praiseworthy- good grades but not brilliant, pretty enough but not gorgeous, several friends but not enough to be considered popular. She quietly skirts around the complex and ever-changing social landscape of Class 3-B, neither liked nor disliked enough to be pulled in against her will.

It’s not a bad life by any means, but sometimes she wishes for something more. A victory, a single skill or competition in which her mastery is undeniable. But what is there? She considers academics, sport, computer science, flower arranging, music (both the government-approved kind and the… other kind), but their class seems to already hold at least one prodigy at every subject. What can she be a winner at?

 

The Program takes everyone by surprise, forcing forty-two lives off their own paths into a horrifically violent collision. Mayumi can only cling to her desk, resisting the urge to vomit or faint as classmates are struck down before her eyes, blood weakly trickling from their wounds. She knows she should be listening to the director (what was his name again? Sakamon? Kamochi?), but Yoshitoki’s ruined jaw and Fumiyo’s vacant, vaguely shocked face draw her attention again and again. The game hasn’t even started, and they’ve already lost.

She’s the fourteenth girl to be called. Most of the remaining students manage to spare her a glance. She doesn’t look for long, but Mayumi thinks she might even see a trace of pity in Satomi’s eyes. It makes sense- no one has a reason to expect her to survive for long. She’s not even certain herself. Trying to ignore the lines of soldiers flanking the hallway, she stops, fiddling with the zip on her bag with the intent of getting a peek at her weapon. Just to get an idea of how to proceed. “Move along!” one of them sharply calls out, shocking her into running the rest of the way out. If she’s already on edge, the arrow that narrowly misses her neck certainly doesn’t help.

She grabs the arrow, pulling it from the ground and searching for where it could have come from. Arrows don’t appear from nowhere, after all. Her question is inadvertently answered when a second arrow falls from the sky, missing by a wider margin. The sky… of course! She looks up to the roof, finding exactly what she feared: another student. It’s dark enough to obscure their face, but the large figure and somewhat audible sobbing can only belong to Yoshio Akamatsu. She almost doesn’t believe it at first- he was more than capable of fighting back against his bullies, but Mayumi had never seen him so much as raise a hand to anyone. If even he was playing… what could the rest of the class do? What had they already done? As she watches, he picks up another arrow, startling her into whatever action she can possibly take before being skewered.

There’s not enough time to check her weapon, but she quickly remembers that she’s already holding something. With all the strength she can summon, she throws the arrow in Yoshio’s direction, sprinting as far as she can in the opposite direction. She doesn’t look back to check whether she hit him, but she definitely hears the release of an arrow from the crossbow, followed by a short cry that seems abruptly cut off. She keeps running. It’s hard to keep track of forty-two students, and she’s not quite sure that she wants to remember who Boy #15 is.

The forest she finds herself in is dark, confusing, and generally intimidating, but at least any other attackers will have a hard time aiming at her. Finally alone and relatively safe, she opens up her bag, pushing aside the food and water until the unmistakable shine of black-painted metal catches her eye. _No way…_ She tentatively pulls it out, noting how heavy it is before looking. It’s a large, brand-new sniper rifle, with several boxes of bullets and an instruction manual nestled in the bottom of the bag. After a moment of watching and listening for other students, her gaze turns back to the gun. It feels like a lifetime since that fateful day in class when she resolved to find something, _anything_ to be the best at. Of course, it can’t have been more than a few months, but that’s probably more experience with shooting than anyone else will have.

 

Four left. Three, not counting herself. Tired to the bone but not willing to risk closing her eyes, Mayumi carefully surveys the empty-looking neighbourhood. Her gun almost feels like part of her by now- despite being low on bullets, it never leaves her hands unless she urgently needs to pick something else up. It’s safe to assume that anyone she runs into will be playing to win, at this stage.

Her heart starts beating faster when she sees the unmistakeable shape of a human body on one of the strangely immaculate lawns, limbs spread out and surrounded by a dark, mostly dried patch of red. She leans close enough to get a look at the corpse’s face and instantly regrets it. The dead girl is just intact enough to be recognisable as Mitsuko (three left, then), but it’s a Mitsuko that she couldn’t have imagined even in her worst nightmares. Not that it means much to think that when her worst nightmares have already come to life before her eyes. Not too far from where Mitsuko lies, Mayumi spots a bag, neatly perched on a small table. She’s not even sure why she bothers checking when it’s sure to be empty, but she finds her own impulse oddly comforting. Under all the difficult choices and survival precautions, there must still be a teenager in there somewhere.

She’s not quite sure what to do next. Two players still lurk out there somewhere, dangerously competent and completely uninterested in making peace. Or they’re just like her, too scared for their own lives to trust anyone. It doesn’t matter anymore, not when the outcome is the same.

The distant burst of gunfire shocks her out of her plans, rifle raised as she scans the surroundings for any movement. Nothing. But if she’s lucky, the other players (she can’t even think of them as classmates anymore, much less friends) have found each other. Another shot rings out, louder this time. Closer? She barely has time to duck behind a house before the island erupts in noise, the endless rapid-fire screams of a spray of bullets. Mayumi waits, not daring to look even as the sounds of the battle slowly approach. If someone has that kind of firepower and knows how to use it, she’s only going to survive by staying hidden.

Her entire body tense, she’s fighting back tears of stress when the street suddenly falls silent. Five seconds, ten, fifteen pass without any noise, then followed by the telltale clattering sound of a gun being dropped. If anyone’s moving, or trying to aim, or using their last breath to quietly curse their killer, Mayumi doesn’t hear it. The only sound that reaches her is her own heartbeat, pounding so loudly in her ears that she’s too dizzy to move with any accuracy. All she can do is stay exactly where she is, and hope she isn’t found.

She can’t possibly measure how long she stays there, muscles aching in protest. It could be hours, or a single, interminably prolonged second. But no matter how long it lasts, it can’t last forever. A soft sound catches her attention, too brief to be identified. It’s followed by another, and another, longer and sounding almost like… scraping against something? Careful not to make a single noise, Mayumi aims her rifle in the direction of the sounds, still so frozen with fear that her hands don’t even shake.

What did she expect? She isn’t sure, but the sight eventually revealed to her fills her with a jarring mix of horror and a sickening kind of relief. Kazuo Kiriyama haltingly drags himself down the street, legs so riddled with bullets that only meagre shards of bone keep them hanging at impossible angles. He doesn’t seem to notice her, continuing past with a deadly-looking machine gun clutched in one hand. Mayumi knows next to nothing about him, but if he’s made it this far, he’ll stop at nothing to win.

She aims. There’s one bullet left in the gun, which is perfectly fine for once- she’s only going to get one chance to shoot. Once he sees her and starts firing, it’s game over for sure. He’s moving, which makes it harder, but he’s slow and predictable enough in his movements that she locks onto her target before he gets out of her sight. Not trusting any sense of fate or justice enough to appeal to, her only hope before squeezing the trigger is that her own expertise doesn’t fail her.

Her eyes involuntarily closing after she fires, she only sees the briefest spray of red before it settles on the ground. She doesn’t dare take so much as a single step closer, eyes straining to see where her bullet hit. The bullet itself is nowhere to be seen, of course, but the semi-solid soup of blood and brains leaking from Kiriyama’s caved-in skull tells her everything she needs to know. She’s done it. She survived.

She _won,_ the director smoothly corrects her as they’re brought back to the main island. She nods politely, then pretends to need the bathroom so she can leave the cabin. Even if he wasn’t such a vile creep, she feels like being alone for a while, and without her gun (she still thinks of it as hers, despite it technically being government property) she feels pathetically defenceless.

“I won.” She tests the words out on her tongue, listening to the hollow-sounding echo. When people win something, they get all kinds of things. Awards, publicity, accomplishment. As much as she tries to picture generic, faceless winners, she can only see the triumphs of her classmates. The triumphs that ultimately meant nothing in the face of a cruel and capricious game.

“I’m a winner.” She tries one more time, but she still doesn’t feel like one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Any feedback is appreciated.


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